Tag Archives: sundays

When I was younger
I wanted to go where the wind took me.
I flowed with the water
And always wanted to see what
Was behind each corner.
Now, I run
Leaving the world behind.
I swim, making my own current
And I don’t wonder what’s around
Every corner because I already know.
I created it.
Life doesn’t happen to you,
You happen to it.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” – Says everyone without a clue.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to be one of the people who said this. I always viewed it as an inspirational quote that could help people who are going through a hard time. That was until I woke up one day and asked, “When am I going to become the strong person that everyone says I’ll be?”

What comes to my mind when I put that quote and my situations together is that I’ll move on and forget about it. For some of my situations, it’s been two years, four years, ten years plus since incidents happened. I still live my life in fear of them happening again and scared I’ll see certain people. Does that sound like moving on to you?

People are under this impression that you grieve, heal, move on, and it never affects you again. You forget about it and it’s like it never happened. That’s the idea of a “Strong” person. That isn’t real. If this is what defines a strong person then there’s no such thing.

The reason is that the world doesn’t stop for anything. Time continues to go by, babies are born, elderly dies and everyone’s’ lives continue. You still have to get up in the morning, go to work, pay bills, provide for your family, and do things that involve life. Just because you’re abused, assaulted, mistreated, let down, or stressed out, doesn’t mean anything. That sounds heartless, but it’s the truth. Life doesn’t care about what you look like, where you’re from, or what religion you are. It’s just hard.

I’m going to tell you something you may not like. Any situation that affects you in this way isn’t something you’ll move on from. Your life will always be affected. Your relationships with people, your workplace, your environment, family, and even yourself. In the Walking Dead Andrea tells a suicidal Beth, “The pain doesn’t go away, you just make room for it.”

If I use the word strong to describe someone that’s been through a traumatic experience, It’s going to be like this. A strong person is someone who made themselves wake up in the morning and go to work instead of calling out and laying in bed. The strong person immersed themselves in an activity to keep their mind busy while the other person dwelled on it constantly. A strong person realized the world is turning whether they want it to, so they continued to turn with it.

When you’re strong, you know that the pain will probably never go away. However, you make sure you do your best not to let it affect your life in a negative way. When it does, you catch it and change the circumstances immediately. You don’t play the “woe is me” card. You don’t use what happened as a crutch to say or o whatever you want.

I’ve been through a lot for someone my age and I’ve seen a lot from other people. Throughout my childhood and into my adult life I’ve had to deal with things I shouldn’t have. Some of my relationships weren’t very good. One, in particular, gave me a form of PTSD that still affects me now. I played the “Woe is me” card, I used it as a crutch to explain the way I am with the “Help isn’t possible” attitude.

When I asked myself why I wasn’t the strong person everyone said I’d be, I realized it’s because I’m still dwelling on it. So I stopped and chose to turn with it. Then I asked why the pain wouldn’t leave and found out that it never would. I’d just make room for it and live day-to-day trying my best to keep it together.

In this world, people go to war and kill women and children soldiers. People get raped and children get abducted. Women and men suffer from abuse, parents mistreat and neglect their kids, and there are more lies flying around than there are drops of water in an ocean. This world is a really crappy place.

I’ve found that when I came to accept this about the world and my life, I got peace. It’s ironic that accepting the idea of never going back to the way things used to be was mentally and emotionally freeing. So this week’s poem is about my realization of what a strong person really is versus what everyone else thinks it is. It’s a traumatic situation in my life that led me down a path that wasn’t pretty. I also threw in a poem by Emily Dickinson that helped me with this.

You say “What doesn’t kill you” like death is only physical

The stranger said, “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you”
Oh, but he did.
You see, I’m still here in front of you speaking.
But if you look at my chest, there’s still a hole
From where he reached in and tore my heart out.

If you look close enough, you’ll read his words
That he tattooed all over my body and
The bruises left from his hate.
To you, I look normal.
But to me, I’m changed forever.

You say I’m lucky he didn’t kill me,
But he did.
Just because I’m breathing,
Doesn’t mean I’m alive.

My life closed twice before its close

My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

In Taylor Swift’s “Red” album, she speaks about all the different forms of love and how they seem different colors in our lives. But mostly, how love is just one big blur of red. They’re butterflies and fear, infatuation and lust among other things that we tend to feel. I’ve had the misfortune of having relationships that had every form of love imaginable. Including the kind where they became my world, and this was my downfall.

Putting them on a pedestal isn’t a bad thing. The only problem is when they don’t reciprocate the feeling. We are all human beings with lives of our own. Different thoughts, habits, faults, and gifts. Not everyone is capable of doing the same thing, so if that person is your everything and you stay their after thought, what happens then?

Your world falls apart. You start to wonder if they love you, if they miss you when you are gone, and if they even think about you. Why don’t they do the things for you that you do for them? Why, why, why? It’s a never-ending quest for something that doesn’t exist. Although, you don’t know that it doesn’t exist until later when you’re already emptied.

And when it’s over and you’re falling apart, they’re moving on with their lives. They may have loved you, but they never cared about you. If they did, you wouldn’t be feeling this way because of their actions. The moral of this story is that if someone puts themselves in a place to hurt you, use you, and lose you, then they aren’t meant to stay apart of your life.

No matter how much you love them, miss them, and think you need them. You really don’t. Take the age you are now (I’ll use me as an example). I am twenty-three. When I look back on the times of my heartbreak and it felt like I couldn’t move on, I’d remember this: I survived my entire life not knowing that person. Not needing their kiss, their touch, their voice, or their presence. And life was pretty great until they got there. If I survived that long not having them, then I will move on not having them.

You think you need them, but you don’t. Especially when they hurt you over and over. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. People can change. We are changing every day. But you are more than likely not going to be around for them to change. If anything, you will either be the reason they spiral and get worse or change for the better. It’s a sad truth that I’ve had to come to realize.

So this week’s poem(s) is about that. Heartbreak, infatuation, and moving on. Realizing that you are okay.

The Sun and The Earth

It feels like the world is over
Because you became the earth that circles their sun.
The problem with that is while they’re shining,
You’re swept with tornadoes and blizzards,
Hurricanes and disease.
War and hate plague you and it’s rare that you ever find peace.
And you’re burned relentlessly.
Their beautiful flames don’t seem so magnificent anymore
Now that they don’t blind you.

You Will Heal

It hurts now, but stick it out.
One day you’ll realize that you haven’t cried.
In fact, you won’t remember the last time you shed
Them a tear.
You’ll think about how you don’t miss them
Because they never gave you something to miss.
You won’t think about them
Because they were never worth one of your thoughts.

And guess what?
The world didn’t end because even when
Life stops for you,
The grass still withers.
The flowers still fade.
The sun and the moon still chase each other in the sky.
The earth still turns
Except now you are the sun.

Recently, my attention turned to this topic. Many people in my life have told me about their own suffering from the mental and emotional abuse they’ve experienced. I know what that’s like because it’s no secret of what I’ve gone through in my life. Humans just want to be loved, appreciated, and felt cared for. When someone we don’t know hurts us, it’s disappointing. However, when someone we love hurts us we can shatter.

The problem is that they don’t always know they’re hurting us, and sometimes they won’t know for a while. Mainly because we’re so scared of hurting them we won’t tell them about the hurt that we’re suffering. These people will tell us how worthless we are and how we can’t do anything right. Sometimes they use those exact words, but other times they dance around them. Other times it’s a slower type of abuse that we don’t notice at first. Eventually, it takes our minds over and before we know it, we’re something that’s broken.

For some, we self-destruct. Believing those things causes us to continue to hurt ourselves and the ones around us because that’s “All we’re good for.” People never realize they’re so much better than that. I’ve had the unfortunate circumstance of heartbreak recently. Someone I loved so deeply hurt me and I’m still in the process forgiveness and trying to get through the day without crying.

I am glad to say that I didn’t self-destruct this time. I think it’s because I had finally found something to live for and someone to care about. Even though I was hurt, I’m incapable of being mad at the person. I won’t lie, it’s frustrating because I want to be. I know I should, but I can’t.

I’m putting two poems up tonight. I wrote them in the last couple of days. It’s the lessons that I’ve learned through my experiences, faith, and prayer that have gotten me through even my darkest moments. I’m not sure how many will read all of this. Maybe some will read the first few paragraphs and get bored, or others won’t read it at all. But I hope that the one I want to read it will.

Don’t you know you’re beautiful

If you feel you are worthless
because of the words of others,
remember that those words are older than you.
They’ve been traveling for some time now.
You are not their first stop,
and you aren’t their last.

Forgiveness and Forgetting

Forgiveness is not the act of
Forgetting what they did.
It’s not for them to feel better,
Nor is it an obligation.
Forgiveness is the act of letting go
Of the pain, they caused so that
You can move on and blossom into the
Butterfly you are.

And now I want you to think of every single person who has ever hurt you. What did they say? How did it make you feel? And now ask yourself, who are they to you?